A Quick Summary of the recent JP Articles

[mbncd]

- They (somewhat) ended up changing the map/layouts of the three cities after all.

I'm pretty sure we've already seen the Grid Aetherits in the middle of buildings and they also said something like they wanted to make it easier to get around or something so not surprised by this at all.

- Depending on how one raises one's chocobo, what they can wear in equipments will also be different. (ex: If you raise it as a mage-type chocobo, then it can wear mage gear; if you raise it as a tank, it can wear tank gear, etc)

It looks like chocobos don't get to benefit from our armoury system o.o

- Hamlet will undergo a complete revamp. It will no longer be the 'closed' type content it currently is. The reason why it's the way it is the current version is due to 1.0 limitations. In ARR they can finally implement a more open-style content, which is what they originally wanted to do.

When they were originally talking about Hamlet, I got the impression it was something you could do on the fly, which to me means with or without a party that does not require a private instance so anyone can join at any time. Hopefully that's what it will be like, where you can just wander in and join whatever is already going on there at the time without having to organise a whole group for it. Maybe have more or less enemies and friendly NPC reinforcements spawn depending on how many are taking part at that moment or something and just base your score on how much you did while you were there (say, how many items you made/found or how many enemies you killed over half an hour or something?). That would also encourage less people to rely on having one person to do all the provisioning work done, if everyone had to do some to improve their ratings.

- Monster AI will operate under a FFXII-style 'gambit'-type system. Likewise, Chocobo AIs will operate under something similar.

This I like ^_^ I don't particularly care about the monsters, always kinda figured they probably worked on something like this already, but my path companion was useless because I couldn't tell him who to attack or anything. He was a tank but running around the other side of the field while I got pummelled like the weak squishy I was... Yay for well trained chocos! I actually asked in the latest live letter questions thread if we could have something like this (even referring to gambits specifically) so really glad that either I gave them the idea or we're thinking on the same page :3 I've kinda felt we've been thinking on the same page since my name was mentioned in the 2.0 advertising ("the crystal dreams") XD I know, I'm an idiot, but I have fun ;P

- Depending on what class you start as, your starting city will be locked to where that class' guild is located. (ex: If you start off as a MRD, you start in Limsa)

I don't like this at all... I'm very attached to my home city of Limsa and to my GC of the Maelstrom. I'm pretty sure I started the game with the conjurer class though so does that mean I'll have my home city change to Gridania? I find that being in a certain GC is very closely linked with supporting that city so if that happened I'd feel a strong need to join the Adders. I don't like Grid or the Adders, I want to stay with the pirates! Also, this kinda goes against the armoury system and I really don't think the two should be connected. Choosing to play level 1 as some class should not restrict your location options. You can change your class by changing weapon/tool (and are often encouraged to do so) but I doubt you can change your starting city so easily. Maybe give us some minor advantage for choosing the same city as our starting city is in (like a weak ring that gives stats beneficial to that class) but don't restrict us to it. If we have to choose a main class when we go to 2.0, I'm choosing ACN so that I can stay in Limsa!